Rossi's Ready
by FotoBridgeT2
Summary: David Rossi was too young to just sit around recooperating...and sitting at home watching JJ and Emily give a press conference makes that more than abundantly clear. quick, one piece filler that occurs during my other story "apocalypse now" H/P mentioned


this is another filler for my story list...it occurs during chapter nine of Apocalypse Now...

THIS HAS MENTIONS OF HOTCH/PRENTISS SHIP..IF YOU DON'T LIKE TURN BACK NOW

current reading order is: 'Horror Movies, Statistics, and a Lifetime', 'Emily's Mr. Right', 'For Now and Forever','Haunted Hotel', 'Hotch's Dark Eyed Obsession', 'Apocalypse Now', 'Conversation', 'Superhero Family', 'Rossi's Ready', 'Fourteen Days'--not posted yet, but in the works, and 'Hope'. Enjoy

DAVID ROSSI

David Rossi was ready to go back to work. He'd had enough of convalescing. He needed to be doing something, something more worthwhile then sitting on the porch with Mudgie and rotting away.

David Rossi wasn't old enough to be put out to pasture just yet.

Rossi sat in the living room, files spread before him, nightly news on in the background. Erin Strauss had called him, asking for a huge favor.

She wanted his input on a new BAU team. She wanted him to head it up for a few weeks once he returned to full duty. Wanted him to make sure the team would be equally as effective as Hotch's team, wanted to make sure they'd have a wide variety of individuals with specialized backgrounds to make them an ultimate profiling force.

Because Hotch's team was just flat out getting too busy to handle all the cases sent their way, and the two other BAU teams just weren't that good. That was part of the favor Strauss had asked as well. Rossi had been asked to reevaluate all the BAU teams' personnel records, and redistribute teams B, C, and the new D, to better balance the individuals.

Team A, Hotchner's team, was being left exactly as it was. Strauss was more than content to leave Aaron Hotchner in his little niche for the rest of his days as an agent, and his people with him. Rossi knew Hotchner was more than happy with that.

Rossi couldn't blame him. Hotch had the job he'd worked hard for, the teammates he respected—and for the most part, handpicked, and access to the woman he wanted above all else. Ironically, the one team member he hadn't hand-picked.

If Hotchner had figured out just what he _wanted _to do with Emily Prentiss, yet. Rossi knew what he'd be doing with her if it was him in Aaron's shoes.

Maybe that was why he had three ex wives and Hotchner only had one.

Still, Emily Prentiss was one hell of a woman. Too bad Hotch had met her first.

The tv blipped an announcement and he looked at it out of habit. That woman reporter who never stopped dramatizing suddenly appeared on the screen, "We are now bringing you coverage from Southern California where the members of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit are holding a conference in regards to the suspected killers of twenty-four innocent people."

At the words _behavioral analysis unit _Rossi's attention sharpened. He turned the volume up when he saw the familiar face of the pretty media liaison filling the screen. Listened as she described why the BAU was there today.

Watched as she turned the conference over to another agent. A dark-haired, dark-eyed lady who had visited every one of the ten days he'd been in the hospital.

His eyes immediately landed on the white bandages. At the right hand in an air cast.

What the hell had happened to Emily? She looked young, beautiful, and vulnerable, and he wondered what Hotch must have been thinking. What was he trying to achieve?

He listened as Emily described the UNSUBS, one disorganized and asocial typology, the other a submissive. Watched as she fielded questions from one man in particular.

Watched her brown eyes flash worriedly, momentarily toward

someone who must have been behind the cameras.

Some of the questions froze Rossi's blood, then heated his temper. "Rumor has it he had a knife to your throat and nearly killed you. Do you care to comment on how he died?"

Sounded like it had been bad. But he was reassured by the way she looked before his eyes. She'd curled her hair, he always liked it when she curled her hair.

He had a sneaking suspicion Hotch liked it curled, too.

For someone unacquainted with Emily, the signal she sent to the blonde beside her would have been missed.

But Dave Rossi had spent a lot of plane rides studying the nuances of the younger woman's expressions, trying to peg just who she was.

He still wasn't sure. But he'd knew enough to recognize the tensing of her lips just the little bit, followed by an almost unnoticeable gesture for JJ to skedaddle. Which the little blonde did.

Rossi's body tensed instinctively. Even through the glass tube he was attuned to his teammates. He knew Emily was expecting something to go down—and she wanted pregnant, vulnerable Jareau out of the line of fire.

Hotch appeared on screen, cold and inscrutable like always. He leaned toward Emily and she leaned toward him, instinctive, like to dark-eyed halves of a whole.

Another question was thrown out over the speakers, and Rossi tensed again. "Just one more question—wasn't it true Palmers was arrested after physically assaulting _you _and making sexual threats?"

_What the hell? _ Emily had been attacked? Rossi pulled out his cell phone, ready to dial someone who could update him on what was going on. His finger hovered over the button that would link him directly with the technical analyst, Garcia. She always knew what was going down. And was the one most likely not to be at the press conference with the rest of the team.

Rossi paused a moment as movement showed at the bottom of his screen, just behind the flashing tipline number. Morgan posed, looking dark and intimidating in black Ray Bans and black fatigues. Rossi knew by looking at him that he was completely on alert. Hotch stepped closer to Emily, an instinctive reaction that signaled he, too, felt the threat.

And his first instinct was to move himself in front of her. Which he did.

Which told Rossi a lot.

Hotch's feelings for Emily hadn't changed in the last several weeks. And he was intent on protecting her from whatever it was threatening her.

No matter what Hotch had to do.

Emily ended the conference and stepped off toward the side of the stage. Hotch's hand was at her elbow. He appeared as nothing more than a lackey, subordinate to the agent they'd apparently made the deliberate face of the investigation.

He knew Emily wasn't like SA Jill Morris, out to make a name, so she was handling the press conference at Hotch's insistence. Rossi had to wonder why.

His curiosity was practically insatiable.

He watched, cell phone in one hand, remote in the other-the burned one, the one he couldn't really use anymore. The one he didn't really like to look at. As Hotch moved his body even more in front of Emily's. As Morgan came up behind them, blocking Emily from the other side.

They're every action shouted to Rossi that both men sensed something—something directed not at them, but at Emily.

"Day of Judgment" were the unclear words that came from the television as what sounded like a hundred rounds of bullets sprayed across the court house foyer.

Rossi actually jumped and dropped both the phone and remote, watching anxiously as Hotch swung Emily out of the way, blocked her body with his, as they both unholstered their guns. They began to move around the column they'd taken cover behind, and the screen went completely blank.

Now all David Rossi could do was wait.

Wait and pray that when the team came home—they'd all come home, in relatively one safe, and happy piece.

David Rossi hated being idle, put out to pasture, away from his team…

And never more so than now…

Dammit…David Rossi was going back to work.


End file.
